A Meditator's Life of the Buddha by Anālayo

A Meditator’s Life of the Buddha, Based on the Early Discourses

Anālayo

A MEDITATOR’S LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

He fared rightly, meditating and reflecting; With his unperturbed purity He invariably smiled and had no anger; Delighting in seclusion, he attained the highest; Fearlessly, he invariably focussed on what is essential: The Buddha.

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 THE MOTIVATION TO GO FORTH 2 MORAL CONDUCT 3 OBSTACLES TO CONCENTRATION 4 ABSORPTION 5 THE IMMATERIAL ATTAINMENTS 6 FORCEFUL CONTROL OF THE MIND 7 BREATH CONTROL 8 FASTING 9 FINDING THE PATH 10 DETERMINATION 11 RECOLLECTION OF PAST LIVES 12 THE DIVINE EYE 13 AWAKENING 14 THE DECISION TO TEACH 15 THE TWO EXTREMES 16 THE FOUR TRUTHS 17 THE THREE TURNINGS 18 HONOURING THE DHARMA 19 TEACHING 20 SEEING THROUGH VIEWS 21 DWELLING IN EMPTINESS 22 DAILY CONDUCT 23 OLD AGE, DISEASE, AND DEATH 24 The FINAL MEDITATION CONCLUSION REFERENCES ABBREVIATIONS

A MEDITATOR’S LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

MEDITATIVE EXERCISES RECOMMENDED IN EACH CHAPTER

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

REFLECTING ON OLD AGE, DISEASE, AND DEATH RECOLLECTING ONE’S WHOLESOME CONDUCT DISTINGUISHING WHOLESOME AND UNWHOLESOME THOUGHTS NOTING THE DIVINE QUALITY OF A CONCENTRATED MIND CONTEMPLATING EMPTINESS WORKING WITH FIVE METHODS TO REMOVE DISTRACTION MINDFULNESS OF BREATHING IN SIXTEEN STEPS CULTIVATING CONTENTMENT REJOICING IN WHOLESOME STATES OF MIND CONTEMPLATING FEELINGS CONTEMPLATING DHARMAS CONTEMPLATING CONSCIOUSNESS AND NAME-AND-FORM CULTIVATING DISPASSION, CESSATION, AND LETTING GO AROUSING COMPASSION BALANCING THE AWAKENING FACTORS APPLYING THE FOUR TRUTHS TO DAILY PRACTICE INCLINING THE MIND TOWARDS NIRVĀṆA RECOLLECTING THE DHARMA CULTIVATING EQUANIMITY NON-ATTACHMENT TO VIEWS PERCEPTION OF SPACE AS A MODE OF DWELLING IN EMPTINESS CLEAR COMPREHENSION IN DAILY ACTIVITIES MINDFULNESS OF DEATH RECOLLECTING THE COMMUNITY RECOLLECTING THE BUDDHA

9. FINDING THE PATH In this chapter I examine the future Buddha’s discovery of the path to awakening. This has its place after he had reviewed his ascetic practices and realized that, even though he had undertaken them in a manner that could hardly be surpassed, they had not led him to awakening. Apparently as part of a review of what he had tried out so far, the bodhisattva remembered an experience of the first absorption from his youth. 1 The relevant part of the Sanskrit fragment parallel to the Mahāsaccaka-sutta describes his remembrance in this way: 2 Then I thought: ‘I remember that accompanying my father, the Sakyan Suddhodana, at his work and while being seated in the shadow of a rose-apple tree, I dwelled secluded from sensuality and secluded from evil and unwholesome states, with application and its sustaining, with joy and happiness born of seclusion, having attained the first absorption.

This may be the path, the way adequate for knowledge, adequate for vision, and adequate for supreme and right awakening.’

The Mahāsaccaka-sutta reports a similar memory, which led the bodhisattva to come to the definite conclusion that this was the path to awakening. 3 In other words, the reasoning underlying his adopting the path of ascetic practices had turned out to be mistaken, in particular the belief that happiness needs to be avoided at all cost and that progress to liberation requires inflicting pain on oneself.

The mistaken notion that happiness needs to be avoided at all cost comes to the fore in a passage found next in the Mahāsaccaka-sutta, according to which the future Buddha thought to himself: ‘Why am I afraid of that happiness which is a happiness apart from sensuality and unwholesome states?’ 4 This implies that earlier he had indeed been afraid of happiness, even of the type of happiness that is not related to sensuality or other unwholesome states.

The type of reasoning behind such apprehensions recurs in a discussion with Jain ascetics reported in the Cūḷadukkhakkhandha-sutta and its parallels. In the course of this discussion, the Jains assert that happiness cannot be gained through happiness, but instead requires going through pain. 5 The belief that happiness is to be gained through pain comes up again as an opinion voiced by a prince in the Bodhirājakumāra-sutta and its Sanskrit fragment parallel, in reply to which the Buddha then relates his own pre-awakening quest. 6 In the Pāli version, the Buddha leads over to this account of his former practices with the following statement: 7 Before my awakening, when still being an unawakened bodhisattva, I thought as well: “Happiness is not to be reached through happiness; happiness is to be reached through pain!”

1

For a version of this episode see above p. {chapter 1}.

The translated passage is based on fragment 336v5 to 336v7, Liu 2010: 222f, parallel to MN 36 at MN I 246,30 (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 340).

3 In an account of the present episode in the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, T 1428 at T XXII 781a7 (translated Bareau 1963: 48), the insight is that the liberation can be attained “on following this path”.

4 The translation is based on MN 36 at MN I 246,37 to 247,2, which has no equivalent in the Sanskrit fragment version. Nakamura 2000: 183 notes that “Gotama thus makes the bold declaration that there is no need to be afraid of happiness.”

5 MN 14 at MN I 93,36 (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 188), with parallels in MĀ 100 at T I 587b28 and EĀ 41.1 at T II 744b9; see also T 55 at T I 850c17 for what might be a translation based on another version of such a statement and for a comparative study that also covers yet another parallel, T 54, Anālayo 2011: 123.

6 MN 85 at MN II 93,13 (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 706), which has a parallel in fragment 342r4, Silverlock 2009: 77; for a comparative study see Anālayo 2011: 481.

7 The translated part is found in MN 85 at MN II 93,15 to 93,18.

2

A MEDITATOR’S LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

The passage translated above, found only in the Pāli version, appears to be concerned in particular with the bodhisattva’s period of asceticism. It must have been the belief that happiness is to be reached through (self-inflicted) pain that motivated the future Buddha during the time of his ascetic practices. Having been unable to reach liberation in this way, he was ready to relinquish this belief. This also appears to be the chief implication of the recollection of his former experience of an absorption.

The sources that report this previous absorption experience vary regarding his age and also the depth of concentration he reached at that time. The presentation in the Mahāsaccaka-sutta and its Sanskrit fragment parallel, according to which he had attained the first absorption, receives support from the Madhyama-āgama, the Divyāvadāna, the Buddhacarita, and several other biographies of the Buddha preserved in Chinese. 8 According to a discourse in the Ekottarika-āgama and the Lalitavistara, however, he attained not only the first, but all four absorptions. 9 The same position is also taken by the Milindapañha and some biographies of the Buddha preserved in Chinese. 10 In view of the struggle the bodhisattva went through before mastering absorption, reported in the Upakkilesa-sutta and its parallel, it seems improbable that during what appears to be an earlier time he had already experienced the fourth absorption. Perhaps the presentation in the Ekottarika-āgama and the Lalitavistara, as well as in the Milindapañha and in some Chinese biographies of the Buddha, result from an attempt to improve on the marvellous quality of this former experience by increasing the depth of concentration of the absorption attained. 11 Regarding the bodhisattva’s age at the time of this former absorption experience, according to the Pāli commentary he was still rather young. The commentary mentions that his father had carried him along and that the wet nurses had left him alone under the rose-apple tree. 12 This gives the impression that he was just a small child. 13 An absorption attained at a fairly young age would then have been during a period of his life before he indulged in sensual pleasures.

Recollecting that would in turn have made it clear to the Buddha-to-be that such happiness and pleasure has no relation whatsoever to sensuality, even indirectly, a distinction that would not have been as evident with any absorption experienced after he had gone forth. Although absorption attainment is of course aloof from sensuality, the very fact of seeking such pleasure could still be suspected to foster the general quest of the mind for pleasure, even of a sensual type. Such is in fact the reasoning underlying the avoidance of anything pleasurable by those pursuing ascetic practices.

The Mahāvastu, however, reports that he had taken a stroll together with his father before sitting down under the rose-apple tree. 14 Moreover, according to the Mahāvastu this meditative experience made his father anxious that his son might want to go forth. In order to 8

MĀ 32 at T I 470c18 (and MĀ 117 at T I 608a2, translated above p. {chapter 1}), Cowell and Neal 1886: 391,16, Johnston 1936/1995: 46 (§5.10, see also T 192 at T IV 8c16), T 184 at T III 467b23, T 186 at T III 499b9, and T 190 at T III 706a20.

9 EĀ 31.8 at T II 671b11 and Lefmann 1902: 263,17 (see also T 187 at T III 560b17); see also Waldschmidt 1929/1982: 10.

10 Mil 290,1, T 189 at T III 629a27, and T 193 at T IV 66b18; see also Bu ston’s History of Buddhism, Obermiller 1931/1986: 15.

11 Foucher 1949: 93 deems the presentation in the Lalitavistara to be part of a general tendency to exaggeration, and Horsch 1964: 117 considers the presentation in the Milindapañha to be a departure from the original. Durt 1982: 116 even qualifies the reference to the attainment of the fourth absorption as an absurd exaggeration.

12 Ps II 290,25.

13 Mil 289,26 in fact takes the position that he was only one month old. This seems too young for him to be able to sit in meditation and attain the first absorption.

14 Senart 1890: 45,4 (translated Jones 1952/1976: 42).

9 FINDING THE PATH

distract him, the father sent women to entertain his son with song and dance. 15 From the viewpoint of the Mahāvastu, he must have been considerably older than being an infant and would no longer have been at an age where sensuality was of no influence on his mind. The Saṅghabhedavastu of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya and the Buddhacarita locate the experience of the first absorption after his legendary four encounters with someone suffering from old age, someone sick, a dead person, and finally a monastic. 16 In these versions he appears to have already been a young man at that time.

An individual Chinese translation that parallels this part of the Mahāsaccaka-sutta places the original experience even soon after his going forth. The relevant part, which describes his recollection after the realization that asceticism is not the path to awakening, proceeds as follows: 17 Then I further thought: Just after going forth I had gone to a Sakyan grove to sit in tranquillity under a rose-apple tree whose shadow did not move, it being shady and cool.

At that time, secluded from being defiled by any sensuality and unwholesome states, with application and sustaining, with joy and happiness born of seclusion, I had realized the first concentrative absorption. This is the right path for awakening as it really is.

The suggestion that he had this absorption experience soon after going forth would imply that the description in the Upakkilesa-sutta and its parallel concerns the bodhisattva’s attempts to replicate this experience and gradually gain mastery of absorption. In fact both versions start their account by reporting that he had attained concentration but then lost it again.

If his absorption experience should instead be placed in his early childhood, however, then this way of presentation could be read in the light of research on children who remember past lives. Cases of this type tend to involve children who at an age of about two years or even earlier start to exhibit informational and behavioural memories from what they experience as one or more past lives. 18 Some years later, as they grow up, such memories and related behaviours tend to become weaker or even be lost completely. An illustrative case involves a Thai girl who at the age of two was taken for the first time to the monastery in which according to her memories she had lived in a former life. She reportedly not only executed the traditional forms of worship and offerings correctly, but also went on her own to sit down cross-legged in meditation posture for half an hour, without having been told by anyone to do so or having witnessed this earlier done at her home by others. 19 On adopting such a reading of the present episode, an absorption experienced in early youth by the bodhisattva could then be considered a behavioural continuity with a past life. This would presumably be from a more distant life given that, according to the Acchariyabbhutadhamma-sutta and its Madhyama-āgama parallel, he had spent his last life before the present one in the Tusita Heaven. 20 In early Buddhist cosmology the Tusita Heaven is inferior to the heavenly realms in which those who have mastery of absorption are reborn.

Thus he could not have passed away as one who had mastered absorption in his last two lives before becoming the Buddha, otherwise he would not have been reborn in Tusita or after that as a human.

15

Senart 1890: 144,6 (translated Jones 1952/1976: 138f).

Gnoli 1977: 76,24 and Johnston 1936/1995: 46 (5.10).

17 The translation is based on T 757 at T XVII 599a14 to 599a18.

18 For a survey of different aspects of such behavioural memories see Stevenson 1987/2001: 115–120.

19 Stevenson 1983: 40.

20 MN 123 at MN III 119,35, (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 980) and its parallel MĀ 32 at T I 470a14 (translated Bingenheimer et al. 2013: 248); for a comparative study see Anālayo 2011: 702.

16

A MEDITATOR’S LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

Be that as it may, what remains common ground among the texts reporting this episode is that he recollected an experience of absorption from the time before he had set out to cultivate the two modes of practice he later found insufficient to lead him to his goal: the immaterial attainments and asceticism. Recalling what he had experienced earlier, well before he had engaged in the practices that in the end had not led him to awakening, helped the bodhisattva to change perspective. The resultant change of perspective is based on the realization that wholesome types of happiness need not be shunned, as they can support progress to awakening. This is precisely the insight that comes to the fore in the Kīṭāgiri-sutta and its Madhyama-āgama parallel, taken up in the previous chapter, which report the Buddha clarifying that he had himself realized that some types of pleasure are obstructive, but others are not. The decisive criterion is therefore not the affective nature of a particular experience, but its wholesome or unwholesome repercussions.

The basic shift of understanding that led the Buddha to finding the path to awakening recurs in a discourse the Saṃyutta-nikāya, in which Māra challenges the Buddha for having given up his ascetic practices. In what follows I translate the Saṃyukta-āgama parallel. 21 At one time the Buddha was dwelling at the location of Uruvelā by the side of the river Nerañjarā, below the Bodhi tree, having just reached full awakening. At that time the Blessed One, being alone in a quiet place and with his mind collected in meditative reflection, thought like this: “I am now liberated from ascetic practice. It is well. I am now well liberated from ascetic practice. Previously I cultivated right aspiration, now it has already born fruit and I gained unsurpassed awakening.”

Then Māra, the Evil One, thought: “Now the recluse Gotama is dwelling at the location of Uruvelā by the side of the river Nerañjarā, below the Bodhi tree, having just reached awakening. I will now approach him to give him trouble.” He transformed himself into a youth, stood in front of the Buddha, and said in verse: “The abode of extensively cultivating ascetic practices, Brings about the attainment of purity.

Now that you have turned back and given them up, What are you searching for here?

You wish to search for purity here, Yet there is no way for you to attain purity.”

Then the Blessed One thought: “This is Māra, the Evil One, who wants to disturb me”, and he said in verse: “I understood that the cultivation of all ascetic practices, Is altogether pointless.

In the end one does not gain benefit, Comparable to a bow that only makes sound. 22 “Morality, concentration, learning, and wisdom are the path, All of which I have already cultivated.

I have attained the foremost purity, 21

The translated discourse is SĀ 1094 at T II 287c21 to 288a8, parallel to SN 4.1 at SN I 103,1 (translated Bodhi 2000: 195f).

22 The translation is based on adopting a variant reading.

9 FINDING THE PATH

A purity that is unsurpassable.”

The Saṃyutta-nikāya version differs in so far as, according to its report, Māra had actually read the mind of the Buddha and thereby come to know what he was thinking. Another difference is that, instead of illustrating the futility of asceticism with a bow (without arrows), the simile in the Saṃyutta-nikāya describes oars and rudders on dry land. Moreover, the qualities the Buddha proclaimed he had cultivated are only morality, concentration, and wisdom. In fact the reference to “learning” in the discourse translated above seems less suited to the context.

Alongside such differences, however, the two versions agree in throwing into relief the Buddha’s realization of the futility of ascetic practices. They also serve to contextualize the memory of his absorption experience by mentioning, in addition to the cultivation of concentration, also the need for morality and wisdom. These are the three trainings that form the foundation for the Buddhist path to awakening and also underlie the noble eightfold path.

This confirms what would already have become evident from the foregoing discussion, in that the path found by the Buddha was not just absorption attainment on its own.

In fact, as mentioned in chapter 4, 23 as far as the early discourses allow us to judge, absorption attainment was already known in the ancient Indian setting before the advent of the Buddha. Such ability would indeed have been required for Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka’s father Rāma to reach the third and fourth immaterial spheres.

The present episode, instead of equating the whole path to awakening with the attainment of the first absorption, seems to imply that recollecting the former absorption experience led the bodhisattva to the realization that wholesome types of happiness need not be shunned. This enabled him to progress to awakening, a progress that requires all three trainings and thus a combining of concentration with the cultivation of morality and wisdom.

Exercise: By way of putting into practice a realization that appears to have been pivotal in the Buddha’s discovery of the path to awakening, I would suggest making a conscious effort to cultivate wholesome types of joy. For this purpose, I recommend contemplation of the mind as described in the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta and already broached in chapter 3 as well as awareness of the absence of the hindrances mentioned in chapter 4. Whereas in chapter 3 the task was to cultivate clear recognition of the presence or absence of lust or anger, etc., building on this recognition we could now give special attention to all those moments in daily life when our own mind is not overwhelmed by strong defilements. This much is reason enough to rejoice.

Cultivating such wholesome joy can become a way of honouring the Buddha through walking the path he discovered by encouraging wholesome types of joy and leaving behind unwholesome types of joy.

In support of this suggestion I would like to note that it is an integral aspect of contemplation of the mind in the satipaṭṭhāna scheme to be aware of the absence of defilements, even if only temporarily. The instructions are not only to recognize the presence of, for example, lust and anger in our mind, but also their absence. Such absence can be made an occasion for the arousing of joy. Such rejoicing need not be confined to the absence of the hindrances during formal meditation, but can have its place any time during daily life, as soon as we have a moment of time to inspect the condition of our mind.

23

See above p. {chapter 4}.

A MEDITATOR’S LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

Needless to say, my recommendation here is not meant to encourage turning a blind eye on our own defilements. The point is only to make a conscious effort to proceed from attention given to our faults to giving similar attention to our positive sides and employ these as a source for arousing joy. The cultivation of such joy will go a long way in strengthening the ability of the mind to remain free from succumbing to defilements on the next possible occasion.